Steven Spielberg is shooting in chilly Cold War Europe on a 60s thriller now entitled "Bridge of Spies," a co-production of DreamWorks Pictures and Fox 2000 starring Tom Hanks and backed by Participant Media. Disney will open the film wide in North American theaters on October 16, 2015, inside the prime awards corridor, with Fox handling the foreign release.

Stepping in for usual Spielberg composer John Williams, recovering from a "health issue," is DreamWorks veteran Thomas Newman (“The Help," ‘American Beauty”). Williams is still scoring Spielberg’s next film, “The BFG,” beginning later this year, continuing their 40 year collaboration, as well as Lucasfilm’s J.J. Abrams upcoming "Star Wars: Episode 7" reboot. But Oscar-winner Alexandre Desplat ("The Grand Budapest Hotel") is taking over from Williams on the follow-up standalone "Star Wars: Rogue One."

The historic drama "Bridge of Spies" tells the story of Brooklyn lawyer James Donovan (Hanks), who is thrust into the center of the Cold War when the CIA sends him to negotiate the release of a captured American U-2 pilot. The screenplay by Matt Charman (“Suite Francaise”) and Ethan & Joel Coen (“No Country for Old Men,” “Fargo”) was inspired by the true story of Donovan, who risked everything.

Along with Spielberg’s “The BFG,” based on the children’s classic by Roald Dahl and also starring Mark Rylance, also upcoming from DreamWorks is Derek Cianfrance’s adaptation “The Light Between Oceans,” based on the novel by M. L. Stedman, which stars Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz.